Non-Fiction

“Can’t Take A Joke?” by Andy Fairhurst (http://andyfairhurst.deviantart.com/)

For Part 1 of this series about queer theory and comic book history, click here.

We can’t talk about heroes without talking about villains. And we can’t talk about villains without talking about Queer Coding.

In academic theory or analysis, “Queer” is vaguely understood to be The Other in regards to societal expectations of sexuality/gender. This is different from casual usage of the word queer, which is used as a slur by some, and increasingly commonly as an umbrella term for gender and sexual minorities, by members of that same community (such as yours truly).

We can’t talk about The Other without acknowledging what is in opposition to The Other. So in queer theory, this can be vaguely understood to be the societal belief that heterosexual and cisgender experiences are The Norm, normative, etc.

For this reason, it is not necessary to “prove” that a character engages in same-sex behaviors or attractions in order to argue that a character is “queer coded” by the choices made by storytellers. Instead, what is being argued is that storytellers are using deviant (which in this academic sense just means not-normative) sexual or gender behaviors as an allusion to criminal and/or amoral motivations.

There are many examples of queer coded villains out there: Scar, Rattigan, Hades, and Jafar of the Disney universe, or Buffalo Bill and Norman Bates of live-action thrillers, or countless video game bosses such as Sephiroth or Vega or Vamp. All of these villains have different goals, motivations, and outcomes, and they perform different evil acts in pursuit of them. But they all share a certain…swishiness in common with one another. A wimpy, un-manly, un-masculine way of carrying themselves. A way that is often deliberately contrasted with their normative foils, the hero who defeats them.

In comic books, there’s no example I love more than The Clown Prince of Crime himself, The Joker.

Batman has an entire Rogues Gallery, but The Joker is his oldest foil. If Batman is a symbol of conquering fear to fight crime, Joker is a symbol of using fear to fight society. If Batman is Order, Joker is Chaos. If Batman is dark and brooding and serious, Joker is bright and garish and absurd. And while Batman believes he has conquered his traumatic past, Joker believes his own traumatic past has conquered whoever he may have once been.

These are what are generally acknowledged to be the intentional themes of Batman and Joker’s dynamic throughout the ongoing (and often-regenerated-but-tweaked) nature of comic book storytelling. But there are many unintentional themes as well, and those are what often make Joker queer coded among various storytellers through his history.

As mentioned before, if our hero is being intentionally envisioned as incredibly masculine and heterosexually virile, then it can become easier to get that across in contrast to a feminized antagonist, rather than solely through the hero himself. This is why I don’t think it is coincidental that the more aggressively masculine iterations of Batman (Frank Miller, for example), are nearly always paired with an equally exaggerated Joker. While less extreme portrayals of Batman usually have less intentionally-feminine portrayals of Joker.

In The Dark Knight Returns, one of the best selling Batman graphic novels of all time, Batman and Joker have been unseen for decades. In the pseudo-1980s apocalyptic “future”, the two men are nearing the end of their lives, surrounded by a world that has forgotten them, and each are pulled back into their public lives for one last push against what society has become in their absence.

For Batman, this means establishing Order by any means necessary. Gone is the friendly childhood Batman who would never dream of killing or even seriously maiming another human being. Instead we have a heavily armored and heavily armed stormtrooper with pointy ears, who defiantly tells the reader “Rubber bullets. Honest.” A Batman who constantly scoffs at progressiveness and civil rights and criminal reform as the source of the societal scourge he must force himself to defeat in spite of his age.

For Joker, who has been in a catatonic state since the disappearance of Batman, his motivations are summed up in a series of increasingly close-up panels of his mouth as the news reports of Batman’s first sighting. His pale unmarked lips finally speak the word, “Darling,” in response. His ability to return to his life of crime is preceded with an intimate portrayal of him applying bright red lipstick, which is complimented by his bleeding-heart liberal TV-therapist, right before The Joker murders him and an entire studio audience.

Joker’s use of make-up on top of his disfigurement, his flamboyant gestures and theatrical presentation, and especially his use of romantic pet names for Batman; are all relatively unique details added by Frank Miller to what we already knew or assumed about The Joker. These are therefore deliberate and intentional choices, even if the intent itself might not be consciously recognized by the storyteller or the reader.

I mention this graphic novel specifically, because it can be argued the current cinematic versions of Batman have heavily borrowed from it’s costume design, it’s themes, and it’s general aesthetic as the quintessential “grownup” or “edgy” version of Batman; and arguably even Zack Snyder and DCU’s entire filmography. (Which is how we wind up with his and Frank Miller’s version of Xerxes in 300.)

So does this mean it’s Uncool to ever make a villain act in a way that isn’t super-duper cisheteronormative? Not necessarily. I don’t think there’s an inherent problem in having queer villains, by which I mean villains who are literally gender/sexual minorities. I think the problem is using deviant gendered behavior/expressions as a shorthand way of portraying the villain as antisocial.

Hell, I think The Joker would actually manage to be even more fun if his queer coding was allowed to surface as an actual queer person, baiting Batman with taunts about how they’re more alike than he’ll ever care to admit. But that is likely to remain relegated to headcanon and fanfiction.

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, also of Batman’s universe, are decent examples of villains who are queer, not queer-coded. These two women are, have been, and will continue to be romantically involved with one another. While this was originally “subtext” or maybe even “fan service”, it has since become acknowledged by storytellers and is officially “canon” now.

And believe me when I tell you, most of my favorite Batman stories are when these two ladies doing villainous shit together in a romantic/sexy kind of way and are loving the hell out of it.

You’ve responded to an invitation for a “social experiment” by Heineken. You are an outspoken trans woman trying to make a difference so you figure, sure. An opportunity is an opportunity. Let’s get this bullshit over with.

Their film crew tapes you speaking about who you are and why trans people deserve to exist. You already know where this is going, but you hope maybe this time you’re wrong.

You come to a warehouse and are made to stand within taped lines facing a bald, mildly put-upon looking man. Gaffs create a bar which the two of you are then instructed to approach and engage in polite conversation. You do so, critically hyperaware of your body and your transness because you already know what this “social experiment” is going to reference.

A buzzer goes off and you’re then instructed to stand and watch a short video. Sure enough, here is the bald man next to you talking about how “weird” the “transgenders” are. Just like clockwork.

“Another one of these fucking feel-good, bigots-just-need-a-hug commercials. Goddammit I gotta talk to my agent about this shit.”

Of course, two Heineken beers are now placed at the bar and you are given the “option” of having one with this man.

But you know if you actually leave you will garner no sympathy for yourself or other trans women. You are already aware that you alone now represent everything good or bad about all trans women to everyone in this room. You also know they will simply continue this “experiment” with other trans women until they achieve the outcome they want for their ad campaign anyway. So you do your best to make the most of it.

You put on that forced smile learned from your matriarchs for dealing with potentially dangerous men, and you make yourself as welcoming and understanding as you possibly can be.

He pretends to leave after you approach the bar. “Thank god,” you think to yourself. But then he comes back laughing and cracking jokes. “Oh goodie, this one’s a comedian.”

And even though that’s where the commercial spot ends, you now have to sit with this man for at least ten minutes while drinking a beer that tastes shameful with each sip, wondering if this is really the best you can do for your trans sisters right now? He asks you the same tired crap you’ve been answering your whole life out of the closet. And now, as you both leave, you know he feels great about himself, while you already feel like shit on the way home.

You retreat to your partner and tell them about how you got hoodwinked, and they reassure you that even though this bullshit gets old, we all have to make the best of what life throws at us, and they are proud of you.

The campaign comes out, and everyone praises the man who ridiculed you and your sisters on screen. And the company that didn’t give a shit about your feelings of safety if they could spin it into a message for drinking their swill.

“This is what we need to create change!” someone comments, “You win more flies with honey…or in this case beer!”

God, now that man looks like a hero, Heineken sells more beer, and you’re just a nameless tr*nny that normal people are saints for treating like a human being.

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I spent Sunday with my mother, as I try to do at least once a month if life permits. We went out for lunch, shopped lazily through the crafting store, and popped into a thrift store on the way back home. While doing so we discussed, as we always have, politics.

My mother and I have been talking politics since I was ten-years-old, “campaigning” for Bill Clinton in my elementary school’s “election day”. She was the one who helped me join Amnesty International when I was in middle school so I could paper my small-town Arkansas town with anti-capital punishment literature. She supported my right to sit during the pledge of allegiance and told me I was brave for doing so. She drove me to my first anti-war protest in the wake of 9/11. My mom is a self-declared “mad dog liberal” and she did a damn good job raising me to be my own “radical commie queer” brand of political.

It was this slight difference in our approaches which created an awkward moment where my mother said, in response to my desire to hang an upside-down American flag outside my home with “Well it’s not like you’re not patriotic.”

I sucked in the air slowly into a humorously awkward pause, then laughed and said, “I like where I live in the sense that it’s got My Me and My People there. But, you know, Fuck The State.” To which my mother admitted, growing up exclusively in Post-Reagan Brutal-Capitalist America would make the idea of patriotism off-putting.

But I understand what my mother meant in her mild protest. While I have become increasingly Anti-Capitalist and Anti-White Supremacy the older I get (and therefore pretty damn anti-american politicoeconomic state in general) I still get teary eyed when I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty on my childhood pilgrimage to my ancestral home. However, the country I live in wants nothing to do with tired, hungry, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We are the country of #ICantBreathe and that is not a new phenomenon, it is our foundation.

There is a picture of Captain America on my desk with the caption “Punching Nazis is an American Tradition”. But of course, it is impossible for me to be proud of the same country that was interning Japanese descendants for the same sort of excuses the Nazis gave for their camps.

The musical Hamilton gives me complicated feelings of pride as the hardworking offspring of Polish “Immigrants, we get the job done!” Complicated because I can’t pretend to forget how many millions of American and African indigenous people had to be slaughtered and/or enslaved to make the young scrappy and hungry nation.

And I remember, oh yeah, America Has Never Been Great. Unless you’re a white land-owning male.

I realize now it is the mythical America I have loved, while becoming increasingly disgusted with the literal America. And no matter how much those two clash, I still want to believe in the America that’s never actually existed. An America of take-all-immigrants who take care of each other with New Deal Socialism rather than Cut-The-Bootstraps Poverty. Then I hear my mother’s last thoughts on the subject, “Well, you and I can’t leave. So we have to make the best of it.”

And she’s right.

I am no patriot by any stretch of definition. But this is where I live. And that means shit being done in my house is my responsibility to deal with whether I like it or not. It doesn’t matter if this is arguably the most powerful government in recorded history.

We must provoke outrage, outright. And make it impossible to justify the cost of the fight. But not while losing sight of how we fucked it up for people who aren’t white.

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I’ve survived toxic relationships, abusive situations, and physical recoveries. I’ve witnessed political despair, queer-antagonistic massacres, and state brutality with the rest of the world.

However I also got a new nephew and started antidepressants for the first time, and I have even started to become active in queerlesque and found the time and space to develop other new talents and hobbies. (Such as renovating tiny houses for plastic people.) Despite the struggles, there were also small comforts. Time makes fools of us all. Perhaps especially the worst of times.

I primarily focused on survival in 2016, rather than living. Which is one of the reasons my writing has dribbled to a stop in my usual history of being a somewhat reliable, if not prolific, writer. When struggling with self-worth and executive function, it can be hard to believe my voice or my words have any reason to exist. That anyone would want to read what I have to say. This is a lifetime struggle for me as a writer, an activist, and a person fighting for their right to exist in a hostile environment. But this is a time for marginalized voices to speak out and create, not yield.

I realize that new year resolutions, and apparently even the concept of breaking time into manageable-socially-agreed-upon yearly increments, has fallen out of favor recently. But I want to do everything I can to not just survive 2017, but to fight for the space for myself and people like me to create. To communicate. To share thoughts and frivolity and pain and questions and observations. I will not let the antagonists of the world restrict my creativity.

So I’m promising myself and my readers that this year will have a lot more angry rants. A lot more queer dystopian escape fantasy. A lot more retorts to poor representation. A lot more snark. A lot more outrage. I do this with the trust that those who wish to read my writing will do so, and others will see themselves out.

Like many of you I am still tender. I am still recovering. I am still grieving.

But I am here with you now. And I promise to be with you more in the coming year.

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This week Vogue released an article discussing trans women’s sex lives after vaginoplasty. There were some things I found impressive, in the my-expectations-can’t-get-much-lower sense. The cis reporter was respectful, in fact she used more respectful language than the trans women she interviewed. And although there was still plenty of hemming and hawing about whether she should be reporting on the subject (she really shouldn’t but here we are), I thought she did as good a job as I could expect from a cis woman reporting on trans women’s lives.

The meat of the article, the interviews with trans women who have had vaginoplasty, I found limited and unimpressive. Both women interviewed, Nomi and Charlie, were straight trans women. And both women would seem to have only discussed their sex life with straight cis women. Despite the article’s initial bemoaning that trans women aren’t having this conversation more openly. And perhaps because of this, the article follows the same tired “vaginas are so confusing how do you make them cum” narrative that is in so many heteronormative discussions of sex. So this is me, a trans woman, initiating a conversation about sex for other trans women. If you are not a trans woman, you are still welcome to read, but this is not written for you.

Straight trans women are not the norm. Seriously.

Less than a quarter of trans women identify as straight, according to the most recent National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which is some of the largest collection of self-reported data about trans people to be found. This means any attempt to have a well-represented conversation about sex and trans women must involve queer trans women. The fact that both of the trans women interviewed at no point discussed sex with anyone other than straight men, frankly says more about straight men as sex partners than it does about sex after vaginoplasty.

Your mileage will vary.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the lament that, by expanding the conversations about trans women beyond what our genitals look like, conversations about sex have somehow become taboo. This has not been my experience, or the experience of any of my trans friends. We talk about sex a lot. Regardless of what shape our genitals are or have been. We’re all trying to figure out how to get where we’re going and none of us were given a decent road map when we were born. If anything, the understanding that surgery is not a given has actually helped us have better conversations about sex.

When I was preparing for surgery, vaginoplasty was intensely important for my happiness and well-being. I would often go into dark pits of self-loathing because of disgust at my own body and how others would perceive it. Now that I’ve had surgery, I can acknowledge it was a good decision but only that it was a good decision for me. Every time a trans woman asks me about vaginoplasty, I tell her the honest truth. It was really fucking difficult, quite possibly the hardest thing I’ve done in an already hard life. And it hasn’t so much improved my life as it has simply removed some obstacles that were significantly troubling. Other than that, not much in my life has changed. I’m still trans and always will be. I will still deal with oppression and obstacles cis people never will, and that’s true of all trans people. The only person who can know if vaginoplasty is right for them or not is the individual contemplating it. For me, that’s more important information than whether I can get wet or not.

My experience will not be your experience. And a cis woman’s experience won’t be your experience either. So rather than wondering if what you experience is “normal”, it’s better to ask if it works for you.

Sex before vaginoplasty can be weird. Sex after vaginoplasty can be weird.

Before surgery, I had a pretty active sex life. I had several regular partners that I enjoyed infrequent sex with in various ways that worked for my and their preferences. Because of intense dysphoria, I never used my genitals during sex before surgery, but I gave lots of head and took lots of anal from people of various genders. Although having the initial conversation of “how do I fuck you?” was awkward, actually having the conversation ensured we had an enjoyable time.

After surgery, I’ve had a pretty active sex life. I have several regular partners of many non-male genders that I enjoy infrequent sex with in various different ways. I still don’t really like having my genitals touched most of the time, which many people find surprising. And I no longer enjoy penetration except in very rare circumstances. But I still give lots of head, and now I love strapping on. My sex life has gotten more creative, but also possibly more confusing, since surgery. But that’s because I’ve expanded what is and isn’t “sex”, not because my anatomy boggles me or my partners.

I still have “how do I fuck you?” conversations with new sex partners. This could be why, at worst, I’ve had unremarkable but never bad sex. I’m not afraid to tell someone “Yeah, your tongue isn’t working for me. Let’s get out the magic wand instead.” And there is still plenty about how sex works for me that I still can’t really articulate or understand, but because I discuss that with the people I have sex with, and not straight cis lady friends, I’ve never had anyone tell me that boring sex is just part of figuring out life with a vagina.

Vaginas aren’t rubik’s cubes. Not even neo-vaginas.

Look, I’m not gonna act like figuring out how to achieve an orgasm isn’t a thing that a lot of women and fems struggle with. We’re socialized to put our (presumably male) partners’ pleasure and needs above our own, with their orgasm being assumed and ours being nice-if-it-happens. Unpacking all that and learning how to speak up for your own needs can be an ongoing process. But none of that means I don’t know how to touch myself and figure out what feels good and what doesn’t. That was how I decoded sex before surgery, and it’s how I decode sex after surgery.

There’s still plenty I’m figuring out, such as whether I’m polyamorous, whether I’m aromantic, whether I’m asexual, why some people turn me on and some don’t, and why that might change suddenly without warning, but I don’t try to figure myself out by sleeping with clueless men and hoping they magically know how to fuck me right. I figure it out by openly discussing those issues with partners, and in therapy if I really need help.

Before surgery, I was able to achieve orgasm after about half an hour of self-stimulation through anal penetration with toys. After surgery, I can achieve an orgasm in less than five minutes if I have my magic wand vibrator and the right mindset. Both of those didn’t come easily right away, but I held myself responsible for my own orgasms and found a way.

Sex is easy, except when it isn’t.

When I think about my major roadblocks in regards to sex, it’s not what gets me off or how my anatomy works or even finding someone who is interested. So frankly, an article that focuses on these aspects is just boring as hell to read. For my sex life, it’s about what relationship, if any, I want to maintain with my sex partners outside of bed. How much personal autonomy and emotional distance I need in order to feel aroused and not suffocated. What forms of communication are effective and what aren’t. How to express my sexuality and still be respectful of my non-binary partners. How to maintain a balance between indulging in fantasy but unequivocally respecting consent as a Domme. Why my sex drive is very high for some periods and then non-existent for other periods of time. Why I have such a difficult time allowing myself to be the focus of attention by a partner. Whether my methods of enjoying sex are healthy but unusual, or a sign of emotional issues I still need to work through.

At no point have I wondered “Is it normal to just feel like you’re rubbing on a carpet when a guy is eating you out?!”

Because regardless of whether it is a “normal” experience or not, it doesn’t mean I or any other trans woman have to put up with it.

Like many people my age, I work many jobs to try to make ends meet. But although I have several side jobs, recently I’ve secured a primary job in retail where I actually receive benefits and insurance and other things befitting of an adult while I work toward grad school.

I like this job. I actually like retail better than other “customer service” jobs I’ve had. I totally grok sales, most of my coworkers end up being women or queer or both, and I love putting people and mannequins in outfits I would never wear, but still look great. It’s like dressing life-size Barbies and getting paid for it.

The last time I had a customer service job I was younger, “straight-ish”, and had a very feminine presentation. Now I am Grown, Gay, and have a very butch presentation. The job is still the same, with the same challenges and frustrations I expect and navigate while dealing with the public. Only now, I occasionally get called “Sir” after I’ve finished helping a customer. And it fucks me up sometimes. Continue reading ““Sir”: Misgendered as Dyke”→

I am thrilled to be surrounded by so many talented writers who are both personal friends as well as role models from afar. This is a great opportunity for so many of us godless do-gooders to do a little more good together, and I’m so excited to be a part of it!

A bit more about me. I’m a trans lesbian psych student who loves pop culture and getting worked up about her academic queer ponderings. I’m also the former host of Secular Shethinkers, a now defunct podcast that gave me a good excuse to drink and go on feminist rants once a week. I’ve also written a few things for other atheist blog sites. I get around, is what I’m implying.

But as some (or most) of you may be unfamiliar with my work, I thought it best to include a little list to give you an idea of what I’m all about over here at Trans and Godless.

The appearance and gender expressions of sexual-minority women, and lesbians in particular, has been of academic interest for a considerable time (Clarke & Spence, 2013; Esterberg, 1996; Hutson, 2012; Huxley, Clarke, & Halliwell, 2013). Are there noticeable differences between heterosexual and homosexual female expression? And if so, what are the explanations and functions for deviant expressions among lesbians? By analyzing an inter-disciplinary collection of studies on lesbian gender expressions, I hope to begin to draw some patterns and new insight into what makes a lesbian “look like” a lesbian, and why she may (or may not) adopt such an expression.

Social dichotomies are constructed binaries used to categorize groups in opposition to one another, typically due to believed mutually exclusive behaviors or characteristics. Two of the more pronounced dichotomies of our society are related to gender and sexuality: Male/Female and Heterosexual/Homosexual.

Although gender and sexuality are not directly related, both of these dichotomies share similar uses and histories in our society. For example, both dichotomies have a privileged/deviant model in terms of one group having the majority of sociopolitical power. Because the privileged groups, Men and Heterosexuals, have more to lose by being seen as members of the deviant groups, Women and Homosexuals, they are frequently defined in direct opposition to the deviant. In other words, one of Heterosexuality’s key characteristics is not being homosexual (Seidman, 2015). The same can be said for Maleness not being female or feminine. In this way, deviant groups tend to have more freedom of expression than their dominant counterparts, if only because they have no social power to lose if their identity is not validated. A straight man has much more to lose if his identities are not validated compared to a lesbian being mistakenly viewed as male or straight, for example (Seidman, 2015; Epstein, 2002). Continue reading “Dichotomous Deviants: Relationships Between Gender and Sexuality Binaries”→

The Stonewall Riots of 1969 and their annual commemoration, in the form of Pride Parades, are arguably the most well-known queer rights events of the 20th century. But what makes Stonewall unique compared to similar demonstrations of the same decade, and what factors combined to ensure its commemoration continued over 40 years later?

I would argue the unique combination of an oppressive environment, a memorable resistance to that oppression, and community access to resources for future commemoration of the event, all worked together for the Stonewall Riots in a way that had not been replicated before. Two previous events demonstrate the importance of an environment oppressive enough to spark a memorable resistance from deviant minorities. Continue reading “Underdogs Hijacked: Stonewall Riots’ Commemorability”→